Berhampur, Aug. 17: The government today shifted Gajapati collector Basudev Bahinipati for negligence in duty after a nursing student Sunita Raita committed suicide on last Wednesday.

In her suicide note, Sunita had blamed the district collector and the project administrator of integrated tribal development agency (ITDA) Kalyan Kumar Rath for her death.

She and her family members had visited the two officers several times seeking release of nursing stipend of Rs 54,000 that was due to her. Lack of financial support forced Sunita to hang herself from a ceiling fan in her house on August 13.

Police had seized her handwritten note from her house on Friday.

“We have seized the note, which is written in English, from her house and are verifying the authenticity of it,” said inspector in-charge of R Udaygiri police station Jaya-dev Biswajit.

Project director of Mayurbhanj district rural development agency Manasi Nimbhal has replaced Bahinipati.

However, Bahinipati refuted the allegation of neglect.

“I had ordered the ITDA Project Administrator to give Sunita the stipend amount of Rs 54,000 on August 11 and a draft was ready on August 12. I don’t know how a collector is held responsible,” he said.

However, Sunita’s parents Sudam and Srimati have blamed the district administration for the death of their daughter.

“We met the officers several times. They initially told us that she should not have joined a nursing school of her choice. She should have got herself admitted to a school selected by the district administration. The officials told us that she would never get any stipend from the government,” said Sudam.

Local zila parishad member Jagabandhu Das alleged that he had met the ITDA project administrator eight times since September last year regarding Sunita’s stipend.

Reacting to charges against him, Rath said: “We had sponsored the name of Sunita for Mother Nursing at Bhubaneswar. But she chose to join Capital Nursing Academy. We repeatedly told Sunita and her parents to submit the document of affiliation by the Indian Nursing Council or the Odisha State Mid-wife Nursing Council to the nursing college, but they failed to do so. We even requested them to provide an account number of the institute for e-transfer of money, but they had failed to do that.”

Rath said he had prepared a separate draft on August 12 as ordered by the collector. “But when we were about to handover it to Capital Nursing Academy through a special messenger, the unfortunate incident took place,” he said.